Complicated
by Feather-of-Maat
Summary: Sylar thought he had a foolproof plan to gain ultimate power. This, however, was a wrinkle he hadn't counted on. Sylar/Heidi. Set in the Five Years Gone future, contains spoilers for that episode.


**Disclaimer:** _Heroes_ and its characters belong to a bunch of people who aren't me.

- - -

To say that Gabriel Gray had never been very good with women would be a slight understatement. Actually, he'd never really been all that good with _people_ in general, but there was something about the opposite sex in particular that was…complicated. Not complicated in the_ good_ way either, like a broken watch screaming to be repaired. It was more of an alien, troublesome sort of complicated, a complicated that lifted him far out of his comfort zone.

That wasn't to say he'd never made attempts, though. In high school there had been exchanged glances, nervous conversations and awkward prom dates, but nothing that ever really stuck. In college and beyond he'd tried the dating world a little, mostly at the urging of his mother, who would sometimes give a wistful sigh and talk about how wonderful—how _special_ it would be to have grandchildren.

He hated the thought of disappointing his mother, but over time he found that the soothing ticking of his timepieces was preferable by far to the conversation of humans.

When he finally discovered his true purpose in life—becoming Sylar, leaving Gabriel Gray behind—the evolutionary imperative consumed everything else. Things like romantic relationships, so _important_ to seemingly everyone else, became nothing to him. Some might even have accused him of being asexual, but that wasn't it at all. It was simply that his priorities were entirely different from those of _normal_ people.

Until he took on the identity of Nathan Petrelli.

The moment he'd killed Nathan had been the greatest of his life. It was the moment he finally achieved his goal: becoming president, becoming the most powerful person in the world. But the side effect of that power had ended up being a little more complicated than he'd originally anticipated.

Tricking the world into thinking he was Nathan—that was easy. He was good at playing roles, and he relished the deception of it all. But fooling the man's _family _was something else altogether.

He took steps to distance himself from them, limiting contact with those most likely to see through the act. And for a while, it worked. He severed nearly all communication with Nathan's rather emotionally unstable brother Peter, which took care of _that_ problem. In the case of other relatives and acquaintances, he simply became "too busy" to see them for any prolonged length of time. It was a time-consuming job, after all, running the country.

But if there was one thing he hadn't counted on, it was stubbornness of Nathan's wife—Heidi.

Of course, he'd originally tried to avoid her as he had Nathan's other relatives, in part because of the danger that she might see through his illusion, but also because he didn't need her. It wasn't that she was unattractive or unpleasant. She was just…insignificant, like so many others. She had no special ability—and even beyond that, there was simply no role for her to play, no purpose for her in his schemes. He had taken on Nathan's identity for the sheer power and authority it granted him. Preserving Petrelli's marriage had never been a factor in the plan.

So he pushed Heidi away, feeding her the same mantra he gave everyone else—too busy, too stressed, too _everything_—until the day the woman decided she wasn't going to take no for an answer anymore.

She cornered him in the bedroom one night and unleashed a flood of words and emotions. What was happening to him, to their marriage? Did he still love her? Was there another woman? The questions rushed on and on, roaring in his ears. In retrospect, he had no idea how he'd managed to stay convincingly in character that whole time, in the midst of the shouts, the pleas, and the arguing on both sides. All he knew was that one thing had led to another, and almost before he was aware of what was happening, she was kissing him with a desperate fervor that overwhelmed him.

He had always thought—in the few moments when he ever bothered to think about such things—that make-up sex was something that happened only in fiction. Apparently he had been wrong. It was simultaneously the most terrifying and one of the most thrilling experiences of his life.

And almost against his will, certainly against his better judgment, he found himself beginning to spend more time around Heidi. It made him realize that for the first time in years, he was doing something solely because he _wanted_ to. Not because it was part of a plan, or a conquest, or an evolutionary imperative, but simply because it pleased him to do so. He found the concept oddly liberating.

And yet, as always…the situation was complicated. How could it be anything _but_ complicated when he was a serial killer turned president, falling in love with the wife of a man he'd murdered, a man he was impersonating?

As time went by, he tried to convince himself it didn't bother him that it was Nathan she saw whenever she smiled at him. It was Nathan's hand she reached for, Nathan's fingers she entwined in hers. And it was always, always Nathan's name on her lips, during the day and late at night_. It doesn't matter. She's unimportant, insignificant,_ he told himself, repeating it like a mantra.

Yet deep in the recesses of his mind, he knew. He could deceive the whole world, had done it for years—but he couldn't lie to himself. And sometimes, when his guard was down, he would catch himself laughing bitterly at the irony of it all.

- - -

It was only late at night, after she had fallen asleep in his arms (_Nathan's arms_) that he could allow himself to drop all the illusions and watch her with his own eyes, touch her with his own hands. He listened closely, letting his super-hearing take over, and discerned her slow, even breathing and the clockwork rhythm of her heartbeat. Only then did he reach for the mental switch that would finally make Nathan's face disappear.

And every night, he tried not to imagine what her face would look like if she suddenly awoke to find that the man next to her wasn't really her husband.

Pushing those thoughts away, he let his fingers trace a path down her cheek, her throat, across the curve of her shoulder. She didn't look different, didn't _feel_ different, yet somehow he knew she was—if only in his own mind. His eyes darkened possessively as he watched her, his fingers involuntarily tightening on her skin. He wasn't accustomed to doing things halfway, but now, he had no choice. She was his, yet she was still Nathan's. The paradox galled him, but it was unavoidable. If she were ever to learn his true identity, he knew she would have to die.

Even as the thought crossed his mind, she began to stir beneath his hand. He flipped the switch again, and Nathan's face reappeared in an instant. (_He hated how involuntary it had become_.)

She moaned sleepily, her eyes still closed as her hand automatically reached across the bed towards him. "Nathan?" she murmured.

_No_. "Yeah," he said softly, his fingers touching hers.

Her eyes opened halfway, and she looked up to where he was propped on one elbow above her. "Something wrong?" she asked, her voice still heavy with sleep.

On an impulse, he leaned down and brushed his lips against her forehead. "Everything's fine," he lied. "Go back to sleep."

She was already halfway there. "Love you, Nathan," she whispered, almost inaudibly, and he cursed Dale Smither's power for letting him hear every word with perfect clarity.

He was beginning to hate Nathan Petrelli.


End file.
